Convicted Arsonist Faces Trial in Breaching of Missouri Levee

Published: October 30, 1994

WEST QUINCY, Mo., Oct. 29—
People who live here along the Mississippi River have rebuilt and rebounded from the disastrous flood of 1993. But they still have one question: Were they victims of nature's fury or one man's sabotage?

That question may be answered as an arsonist and petty burglar named James R. Scott faces a judge, a jury and a potential life sentence when his trial begins on Monday in Kirksville, Mo., about 65 miles west of here. Mr. Scott is accused of knowingly causing a catastrophe by breaching a levee, a simple act of vandalism believed to have led to a multimillion-dollar disaster.

The July 16, 1993, break unleashed the rising Mississippi onto 14,000 acres of farmland, ripped through a milelong business strip, flooded a road to an important bridge crossing the river and toppled fuel storage tanks, igniting a fireball atop the roiling waters.

Crops were lost. Businesses and house were destroyed. The bridge, the only way to cross the Mississippi for 200 miles, was out of service for 71 days.

And now, prosecutors say, Mr. Scott, a 24-year-old resident of Fowler, Ill., with a long criminal record, should pay.

Police officers say Mr. Scott confessed last fall to removing four or five sandbags and told a friend he wanted to make sure that his wife could not return from her job across the river.

On the night of the break, Mr. Scott was on TV boasting to a reporter of his heroic struggle to save the levee, a broadcast that is reported to have caught the eye of police officers familiar with his troubled past.

Mr. Scott's case was moved to another county because of pretrial publicity, but his lawyer, a public defender named Jeff Estes, says, "I would have preferred to try it in Arizona or New Mexico."

For those here who have stayed and started over, Mr. Scott is already an outcast whose alleged crime is unfathomable. Still, there is little talk of vengeance.

"I don't know what you could do to this guy that could come close to what he did to so many people," said Ralph Martin, who ran the service station where the fire began. "He doesn't have any money to make compensation. I can't think of any punishment that would really equal things or make you feel better."

Today, the war against the flood is over, but the battle scars remain. Gutted buildings stand empty, windows shattered, exposed wiring fluttering in the wind.

Yet, signs of rebirth are visible. Gas stations and the gun shop have reopened. The pawn shop, closed for six months, was rebuilt, though its owner, C. G. McPike, said he lost $200,000 in inventory.

"I'm not real bitter," Mr. McPike said. "Lots of bad things happen in life. You don't dwell on them. You go on."

But he said he was eagerly awaiting the trial of Mr. Scott, who has been held on $1 million bond and is already serving a 10-year sentence for burglary.

In fact, police officers said Mr. Scott confessed to sabotage while being questioned about a $100 burglary in Illinois. At his sentencing hearing, they testified that he told them he had removed sandbags from a depressed spot after officials ignored his warnings about trouble in the area.

He was sentenced for the burglary in January, and the judge, Dennis Cashman of Adams County Circuit Court referred to the levee break, saying: "With his bare hands, he perhaps removed a few sandbags, but tore apart the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people."

If convicted on the charge of knowingly causing a catastrophe, Mr. Scott faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.